“I’ll be ready in ten minutes.”
“Does a woman ever really mean that when she says it?” he asked, voice dry but a twinkle in his eyes as his gaze met mine.
“Time me,” I said, and raced up the stairs.
After the quickest shower in recorded history—for me, at least—I dried myself, then padded naked into my bedroom to raid my wardrobe, picking out a pair of jeans, an old Nirvana T-shirt, and a woolen sweater that would keep me warm even when it was wet. I dug an old pair of Nikes from the thick dust under my bed, then grabbed the waterproof food carryall my dad had made when I was a teenager who constantly needed to be fed and yet who was prone to wandering unheeding of time under the sea, and filled it with extra clothes and a coat. At least I’d have something dry to change into once I was in Scotland.
That done, I picked it up and clattered back down the stairs.
He glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes and forty-five seconds. You’re late.”
“So I’ll make it up to you later. There is, however, hot water left, so maybe you should be thanking me.”
“Maybe I should.” He put his coffee cup down on the bench, then walked across to give me a quick kiss. “Hmmm. Nice.”
“Shower,” I said, smiling as I stepped away from him. “Otherwise we’re never going to get out of here.”
“A bossy woman,” he muttered, the twinkle in his eyes belying the edge in his voice. “Just my luck.”
“Get,” I said, imperiously pointing toward the stairs.
He got. I poured myself a coffee, then turned off the machine and leaned back on the bench, sipping the hot, sweet liquid and listening to the shower, imagining all that water running over lean, hard, golden flesh.
He rattled down the stairs ten minutes later, as sexy as all get-out in jeans and one of my dad’s old black sweaters. My body began to ache at the mere sight of him, but now was not the time. We had people to rescue, and they’d all spent too much time locked in hell already.
“Got everything you need?” he asked, switching the kitchen light off then grabbing the car keys from the counter.
I nodded and rinsed out the rest of the coffee under the tap, then followed him out the back door. The wind whipped around me as I stepped onto the porch, flinging my still-damp hair in every direction. I shivered and locked the door, then shoved the key in my pocket. No need to put it in the plant anymore. There was no one else left who needed it—not unless I rescued my mother.
“What happened to those men who were waiting for us?” I asked, a slight catch in my voice that could have been caused by either fear of what I still had to do or the cold itself. Maybe even a bit of both.
He strode ahead of me, already in the trees, and for a moment, I didn’t think he’d heard me. Then he flung over his shoulder, “I flew them off the property. Dumped them and a few supplies in some secluded forest in Canada and took their cell phones. It’ll take them days to get anywhere without phones.”
And by the time they did get somewhere, we’d be long gone.
I followed Trae through the trees and down to the beach. The wind in the open was even colder, filled with the scent of the sea, a scent that called me on.
I gripped my bag tightly, and stopped beside Trae. “Talk to you in Scotland,” he said, and dropped a kiss on my cheek.
“You’d better have a coffee ready,” I said, “because I’m going to be fucking freezing by the time I get to those shores.”
He laughed, and flung an arm around my shoulders, hugging me briefly but fiercely. “There’s better ways than coffee to warm you up,” he said, giving me another swift kiss, then letting me go.
I walked down to the water. The sea greeted me with its usual enthusiasm, and a smile touched my lips. I dove into the water and kept under the waves, swimming far out. When I finally surfaced, Trae had already gone.
The journey to Scotland was a long and, in many ways, a lonely one. Trae occasionally swooped above me, his gold and silver form bright against the blue of the skies, but mostly I was alone, deep under the water, with only the occasional pod of dolphins to keep me company.
I didn’t stop, though tiredness was a weight that made my body ache. Stopping gave me time to think about Mom and the kids and what they might have gone through while I was away, and those were thoughts I just couldn’t handle right now.
I made my way around the Hebrides and Orkney Islands and finally swam down through the North Sea to the Moray Firth near Inverness. Night had leeched the warmth from the sky by the time I got near the River Ness, and the lights of the city washed brightness across the river. I swam upstream for as long as I could, then, when the water would no longer cover or hide my dragon form, shifted shape and swam toward the shore.
To say I was dripping wet and freezing cold by the time I climbed up the grassy bank would have been the understatement of the year. I splashed out of the water and looked around, wondering where the hell Trae was. I hadn’t seen him for at least six hours, and given how densely packed with humanity this area was, he wouldn’t have been able to land anywhere near.
I just about had a heart attack when a voice behind me said, in a thick Scottish brogue, “Jesus, girl, are you all right?”
Totally glad I’d decided to keep my clothes on rather than swim naked, I turned around and gave the stout, gray-haired man standing in front of me a wan smile. “Yeah. I fell into the water while trying to retrieve my cell phone.”
“That’s a dangerous thing to be doing at this hour of the evening.”